Wednesday, May 12

Thursday, May 13

Friday, May 14

Mass in Porto 5 a.m. ET

Upcoming Papal Visits

Papal Visit to Cyprus June 4 - June 6, 2010

Papal Visit to Great Britian September 16 - September 19, 2010

The Apparitions

For the sake of clarity allow me to list the major
catechetical truths communicated to the children by Our Lady in the
six apparitions that took place between May 13 and October 13, 1917.
I shall omit here the points of "prophecy" made by the Blessed
Mother. Although the prophecies are important in themselves and an
integral part of the message of Fatima, we must neither forget nor
obscure the essential components of the message: faith, conversion
to Christ and reparation.

1. God the Father's merciful love for every human person is
definitively revealed in the gift of his Son. Many people in the
twentieth century are indifferent to and even antagonistic towards
Christ.

2. The mission of Christ is essentially redemptive. Christ came into
the world to offer his life in sacrifice for the salvation of all
people.

3. In Christ, God suffers as a result of sin. In Christ also, the
Almighty loves mankind with a human heart and yearns for human love
in return.

4. In his conversion from mortal sin, man begins to love the good
God. This love continues and grows to perfection as he desires to
make reparation for his own sins and the sins of others through acts
of charity.

5. When a Christian surrenders himself unreservedly to the Lord, he
consoles Jesus and satiates his thirst for souls.

6. Through the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit working in the
Church and in intimate communion with Christ, the Christian becomes
"perfectly willing to spend all and to be expended in the interest
of souls" (2 Cor. 12:15) and "makes up in his own body what has
still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the
Church" (Col. 1:24). In other words, every Christian is called to
give himself unreservedly to Christ's redeeming work. He does this
by conversion, fidelity to daily duty, prayer (especially the
Rosary), acts of charity, acceptance of sufferings permitted by God
and voluntary penances.

7. The Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, following Mary as model
and guide, unites her self-sacrifice to Christ's and becomes his
co-worker in the world. The collective suffering of the Church as a
whole, and of each Christian, joined to Christ's passion, brings the
saving grace of the Lord to souls. The Church's active role in the
application of the grace of Redemption is perhaps the major stress
of the Fatima message. (Please note that this theme is conspicuously
absent from many expressions of contemporary ecclesiology and is all
but forgotten in many quarters as an essential component of the
Church's ascetical-mystical doctrine. This fatal deficiency leads to
either the denial or the devaluation of the Eucharist as the
redemptive sacrifice of Christ and his Church. Hence, the need for
Eucharistic reparation is at the heart of the Fatima catechesis.)

8. Every aspect of spirit and the spiritual world is underscored in
the Fatima message: the Trinity, angels, demons, the existence of
the immortal human soul; heaven, hell and purgatory.

9. Fatima affirms the essential importance of the Vicar of Christ in
the daily life of the Church as well as the Pope's mystic
identification with Christ, the crucified bridegroom of the Church.

10. Fatima unambiguously reaffirms the doctrine of hellfire (the
pain of sense) and the real possibility of eternal damnation.

11. The Christian's union with Christ in his suffering, death and
resurrection leads to perfect union with Him in heaven and to the
resurrection of the flesh on the last day.